Lindy La Rocque

Lindy La Rocque has quickly proven to be one of the most impactful head coaches in college sports as she crafted a championship-winning team in just two seasons at UNLV.

The Lady Rebels’ meteoric rise is staggering. In 2021-22, UNLV reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 20 seasons after sweeping the Mountain West regular-season and tournament championships, a first for the program. Its 26 wins were its most in more than three decades.

La Rocque delivered an instant impact in her first season as a collegiate head coach. La Rocque became UNLV’s first Mountain West Coach of the Year after leading Division I women’s basketball sixth-youngest squad to a second-place finish in the conference, despite being picked ninth in the preseason poll.

UNLV’s 13 conference victories in the COVID-19 restructured 2020-21 season were the most of any school in the Mountain West. La Rocque became the first UNLV coach to lead a team to an undefeated conference road record (9-0), leading to the nation’s fifth-longest road winning streak. The Lady Rebels were the only Mountain West team to beat every conference opponent at least once.

All that with a roster that lost more offensive production from its previous year than any other team in the nation save one.

The second-youngest coach in Division I women's basketball, La Rocque's 15 wins in 2020-21 (15-9 overall record) ranked second for wins among first-year Division I head coaches.

A key part of NCAA Tournament appearances in 10 out of 11 years, La Rocque returned to her native Las Vegas, where she prepped at Durango High School before playing in four straight Final Fours as a student-athlete at Stanford University. She was an assistant coach with the Cardinal for the previous three years under legendary head coach and Hall of Famer Tara VanDerveer.

On the coaching staff at Stanford since 2017, the program consistently ranked among the top 10 in the country. The Cardinal made NCAA Tournament appearances in each season, including two Sweet 16s, an Elite Eight and won the Pac-12 Conference Tournament Championship in 2019. From 2017-20, Stanford had an overall record of 82-22 and was 43-10 in conference play.

Coach La Rocque earned a bachelor's degree in science, technology, and society, with an emphasis in earth systems, civil and environmental engineering, and calculus from Stanford in 2012. She holds a master's degree in adult and higher education from Oklahoma, which she earned in 2015.